Sickening, frustrating financial system

Aaaaaargh. I've just returned to the office after a trip to the Lloyds TSB, and I'm deeply wound-up by the poor service I've had from the banks over the past two months. On my first visit, back during a lunchtime in early December, I discovered that, since so many people in Camberwell are busy stealing bank cards from each other, or impersonating each other, they've had to up the level of security so that you can't withdraw money over the counter without a passport or driver's licence (identity cards, anyone?).

So, in order to transfer any money from one bank to another, the only way to do it without incurring a £20 charge from Lloyds is to take the money out *in cash* and carry it to another bank. Primitive, huh? And importantly, it's not very safe. I wouldn't want to have to physically carry several hundred quid with me if I were an elderly person out and about on the streets of Camberwell.

Right at the start of December, I had to pay my rent to my landlords at and HSBC branch, and, get this, between 11 and 3 (i.e. the only hours anyone who has a job can go to them), they won't serve anyone but people holding HSBC accounts. All of this is really due to the UK's infuriatingly-short, mediaeval banking hours, that mean that banks are pretty much never open when those of us who work 9-5 (or 10-6 ;-) ) are free.

Next, on the 6th December, in order that I could pay Jack for the flights to America, I went down to Lloyds where, because I didn't have a passport with me, I had to take out the money in cash from the cashpoint, in order to pay it straight back in to the bank desk. This all took quite a while, and I was only at liberty to do it because I was officially on my way back from a meeting out-of-office. This all seemed like it had gone okay until Jack pointed out to me as we were leaving for the US that the money hadn't arrived at Barclaycard.

Once we returned from the US, the money _still_ hadn't arrived at Barclaycard. So I went to the Lloyds branch to find out what had happened. They had just decided that it would sit in one of their holding accounts, conveniently. Doesn't look like they intended on telling me - if you were the sort of person for whom £340.10 isn't a lot of money, you probably wouldn't have ever noticed, or been informed that this had happened to your money.

Obviously interest had accrued on this money while it remained unpaid on Jack's Barclaycard. I pointed this out to Lloyds TSB once they'd tracked what had happened to the money, and they said that, since I'd paid the money in on the 6th (the date it was due), that they wouldn't pay the first month's interest because it actually takes them 4 days to electronically transfer the money to another bank or credit card. 4 days to process a simple electronic payment?!! How the hell does that work? A cheque I can just about understand, but cash paid into a human being which will be input immediately?

Strikes me as another way for Lloyds to have the money sitting in their accounts, accruing their own interest.

They conceded that they were responsible for interest beyond the first month, and would pay that. They told me to get statements from Jack, bring them into the branch, and we'd re-process the request. Jack sent me the statements. I went back to the branch. They spent 10 minutes attempting to work out the situation from their Customer Record Management system, then told me that I'd need to get Barclaycard to tell us exactly how much interest was related to the £340.10, so I'd have to get the actual statement from Barclaycard, which Jack would have to request.

I relayed this to Jack on the phone. "They won't process it without the ..." > "Can't process it!" they interrupted from behind the glass. "What about all of the account information on the original mandate?" I asked. "It's not valid" they (helpfully) replied, even though it would clearly be the exact same info.

Now here's the good bit. They then decided to inform me that I shouldn't have been allowed to try and pay the credit card bill originally at all, because I wasn't the cardholder of the credit card, and the cardholder wouldn't necessarily be a Lloyds customer. What about me being a Lloyds customer? And why has it taken them nearly 2 months to express this policy, after botching the original transfer?

Jobsworth scum working in an antequated industry.